90 RUELLIA CILIOSA. LONG-TUBED RUELLIA. 



the Corinthian column, a magnificent ornament still used and 

 admired by the whole civilized world." The story is quite at- 

 tractive, no doubt, but like so many other poetical fancies, it has 

 been attacked by the critics, and its reliability impeached. Its 

 poetical reality, however, still survives ; and whether it be true or 

 apocryphal, we may learn from it the lesson that many beautiful 

 aids in the study of nature and of art are to be found all around 

 us, if we will only look about us with attentive eyes. There are 

 plenty of materials among our native plants for forming combi- 

 nations that might become as famous in after ages as the inven- 

 tion ascribed to Callimachus. 



Those who are acquainted with the various forms of the Acan- 

 thus-leaf employed in Greek and Roman ornamentation will 

 possibly wonder why the plant represented on our plate should 

 belong to the same family. There is certainly very little resem- 

 blance between the bold, deeply cut leaves of the Acanthus and 

 the entire, lanceolate leaves of the Riicllia ciliosa; but the leaves 

 alone are very subordinate in fixing the characters of an order. 

 It is the flowers, and especially the fruit, which settle the ques- 

 tion ; and in these particulars our plant agrees with the other 

 members of the order, although within the order itself it is 

 widely removed from the real Acanthus. 



The order of AcanthacecB is very closely related to that of the 

 Bignoniaccis, to which the common Trumpet-vine and the 

 Catalpa belong. The flowers in both are similar in form, and 

 the two-lipped stigma is in some genera very nearly alike in the 

 two orders. The two-valved capsule is also common to both, 

 and the elementary plan of the flowers is very nearly the same. 

 But in AcanthacccB there is a general tendency to flower from 

 the axils of the leaves, while in BignoniacecE the flowers rather 

 terminate the growing shoots. One of the leading characters, 

 however, which botanists rely on in distinguishing the two orders, 

 is found in the woody, hooked beaks by which the seeds are at- 

 tached to the placenta (or surface on which they are borne) in the 

 AcaiitkacccE, a peculiarity which is not found in the Bignoiiiacecs. 



